What can and should we predict in mental health?

May 20, 2013

Med J Aust 2013; 198 (9): 459.

doi:10.5694/mja13.c0520

Authors: Astika Kappagoda, Ruth Armstrong

David Foster Wallace, in his novel Infinite jest (1996), described the impulse for a person at the point of suicide as like that of jumping from a burning high-rise building. “Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me … [but] when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors.”

This is one way to conceptualise the situation for at least 2273 people in Australia who committed suicide in 2011. To understand how to prevent such deaths, we need to know — following Wallace’s metaphor — the point at which an individual will choose to jump rather than face the flames. Can we predict this? And to what extent can we predict any outcomes in psychiatry?

Much effort has gone into trying to identify patients who are at particular risk of completed suicide within a year after presenting in psychological crisis or after attempting suicide. Ryan and Large (doi: 10.5694/mja13.10437) argue that predicting the short-term risk of suicide for such patients is not possible given the lack of identified risk factors…